During the press conference to announce Nokia being acquired by Microsoft, the Nokia CEO ended his speech by saying, “We didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost.” It’s a gut-wrenching epitaph for a giant felled not by disgrace or blunder, but by a failure to outmanoeuvre a world that moved too fast.
Nokia has been a respectable company. They didn’t do anything wrong in their business; however, the world changed too fast. Their opponents were too powerful. They missed out on learning, they missed out on changing, and thus they lost the opportunity at hand to make it big; they lost their chance of survival.
Today, in Nigeria’s political arena, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan might be scripting her version of that story. Pitted against Senate President Godswill Akpabio, she’s a disruptor facing a titan—and the odds suggest she could end up like Nokia, undone by an opponent too powerful to outrun.
Natasha is a newcomer from Kogi Central and is currently in a pretty high-stakes tug-of-war with Akpabio, who is the number three most powerful political officeholder in Nigeria.
They started with just small differences over who sat where, but from this little misunderstanding grew big problems. Things went way off track into big claims of sexual harassment, too much power, and getting in the way of lawmakers doing their jobs.
She claims Akpabio’s been targeting her since she rebuffed his alleged advances in December 2023. He denied it, his wife called it nonsense, and the Senate slapped Natasha with a six-month suspension as of March 6, 2025. The whole mess is a lightning rod—protests in Abuja, lawsuits flying, and calls for investigation from heavyweights like Atiku and Saraki.
Natasha, too, is a contender with promise: a rare female voice in Nigeria’s 109-seat Senate, where women hold just four chairs, she’s brought fire and defiance since her 2023 swearing-in. And like Nokia, she might not survive the wave.
Natasha could indeed end up like Nokia, outmanoeuvred by a bigger, entrenched player. Akpabio’s no lightweight: decades in Nigerian politics, a governorship under his belt, and now the Senate Presidency gives him a war chest of influence, allies, and know-how. Natasha’s got grit and a growing profile, but she’s still a rookie senator in a system that’s chewed up bigger names than hers. If Akpabio’s the iPhone in this fight—dominant, adaptable, overwhelming—she might just be the Symbian: solid but outpaced.
The Senate’s swift six-month suspension of her on March 6, 2025, after she dared call out Akpabio’s alleged abuses, shows how this works: no investigation, no hesitation, just a hammer dropped to silence dissent. His camp dismisses her claims—harassment since December 2023, blocked legislative moves—as fiction, while his wife’s public rebuttal adds a personal jab.
This isn’t a fair fight; it’s a steamroller versus a speed bump. Natasha’s got lawsuits and protests in her corner, but Akpabio’s got the numbers, the old boy network, and a system that’s never been kind to outliers.
Nokia didn’t lose because it built bad phones; it lost because it couldn’t match the relentless pace of its rivals. Natasha’s not faltering because her cause lacks merit—her allegations, if true, demand reckoning—but because Akpabio’s power is a tide wave. Nigeria’s Senate isn’t a meritocracy; it’s a stronghold where loyalty and clout trump all.
The 96% male chamber isn’t exactly primed to rally behind a woman accusing its boss of misconduct. And Akpabio, a seasoned brawler that he is, knows how to play dirty without breaking a sweat. Natasha’s suspension reeks of a Senate shielding its own, a move as predictable as it is ruthless. She’s fighting a giant that doesn’t need to win the argument—just the war.
Her delay in raising the harassment claims—over a year—muddies her credibility, and if this is political theatre gone wrong, it could collapse under its own weight. Akpabio’s too entrenched, too savvy, to be toppled by a lone senator without a knockout blow.
Here’s the cold truth: Natasha’s likely headed for a Nokia ending—not because she’s wrong, but because Akpabio’s too strong. Power doesn’t bend to principle in Nigeria’s political coliseum; it bends to muscle. She’d need a seismic shift—undeniable evidence, a coalition of senators, or a public uprising that scares the Senate stiff—to flip this script. Without it, she’s a footnote waiting to happen, suspended and sidelined while Akpabio rolls on.
Nokia couldn’t outpace the smartphone tide; Natasha might not outlast this political one. Her lesson, like Nokia’s, could be brutal: even the boldest fighters lose when the game’s rigged and the clock runs out.
– Micheal Ezeh, a journalist, writes from Abuja.
Disclaimer: This article is entirely the opinion of the writer and does not represent the views of The Whistler.
